Movie Review: The Old Dark House (1932)

The Old Dark House (1932) directed by James Whale

A couple (Raymond Massey and Gloria Stuart) and their layabout friend (Melvin Douglas) are driving through a dark and stormy night when the road washes out and they are forced to take shelter at the only house around. The house is a creepy, blocky mansion that looks like it is about to get washed out too. The door is answered by the mute butler Morgan (Boris Karloff) who eventually lets them in. The house is owned by Rebecca (Eva Moore), though they first meet her brother Horace (Ernest Thesiger) who strikes them as eccentric and unwelcoming. Rebecca is also off-putting and inhospitable. The homeowners eventually allow the visitors to stay, offering them a meal as the siblings try to warn them about how unsafe they are, especially if Morgan starts drinking again. Another knock on the door brings Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and his lady friend Gladys (Lilian Bond). They join in the festivities and the shenanigans. The mute butler does get drunk and troublesome downstairs. The lights go out and other house members locked away upstairs add to the mayhem. It's a long, dark night in the old, dark house.

Whale directed the film just after Frankenstein and gets another fine performance from Karloff. The rest of the cast is superb, especially Laughton as a blowhard nouveau riche playboy with a less happy side to him. Most of the character have more depth than you'd expect in a quick-running (72 minutes) horror film. The creepiness and a bit of comedy are on full display as the characters find out more about the house and themselves. The ending is a little abrupt and does not quite tie up the loose ends. Even so, the film is a delightful little spooker.

Recommended.

I watched this streaming on Kanopy and the print is great.

Movie Reviews: Invisible Man-ia

I finally watched all of the Invisible Man movies on the DVD collection I've owned for years and years. Here's the good, the bad, and the crazy...

The Invisible Man (1933) directed by James Whale

A heavily bandaged and goggled man shows up at the Lion's Head Inn, a countryside pub where the local populace is hanging out during a snowy winter night. The stranger is Griffin (Claude Rains). He demands lodging with a sitting room and a fire. He sets up a lab where he works to reverse his great scientific success--he's made himself invisible! The bar patrons are curious as are the bar owners. Griffin does not welcome their curiosity and hides his problem from them. Once Griffin can't pay the rent, they are ready to kick him out. By this time, the frustration of not finding a solution gets to Griffin, who is ready to kill and cause havoc to get his way. His scientist mentor (Henry Travers), the other mentee (William Harrigan), and the mentor's daughter (Gloria Stuart--the character is going to marry Griffin) come to help but Griffin has become too crazy and ambitious to listen even to his fiancee.  

The story is full of speculation on how to catch an invisible man, along with various attempts at the more practical ideas. The movie has a good sense of humor and the effects are amazing consider the movie was made over ninety years ago. A few of the floating items are clearly on strings, which often gets the focus of reviewers, but a lot of other effects are impressive for the time. Rains gives a great performance, especially considering he is almost entirely just a voice. He sells the pathos and madness of his character. Una O'Connor reprises her role as the shrieking female comic relief from Bride of Frankenstein, overdoing it even more this time as wife of the innkeeper.

Recommended--This is an entertaining story with some impressive visual effects. It doesn't have the thematic depths of other Universal horror classics.

The Invisible Man Returns (1940) co-written and directed by Joe May

Geoffrey Radcliffe (Vincent Price) has been convicted of killing his brother and waits for execution. His best friend is Frank Griffin (John Sutton), brother of the guy in the first movie. Frank is also a scientist and works at the Radcliffe coal mine as a doctor. Frank visits Geoffrey on the eve of his execution. Geoffrey then makes a fantastic escape because he is now...the Invisible Man! Geoffrey was falsely accused and wants to find the true killers. He hides at a lodge with his girlfriend Helen (Nan Grey) and plans his next move. Meanwhile, the police are out in force at the Radcliffe estate. Geoffrey goes back to the coal mine where Frank works on a cure. Frank is not as brilliant as his brother and the madness slowly takes over Geoffrey, but not before he discovers the true culprit.

The movie plays itself as both an "innocent man" drama and as an "invisible man" thriller. Geoffrey is depicted as a good fellow driven to desperation by his predicament. As he goes about in his invisible state, he realizes all that he can do. Price has a great madman speech in the middle of the film where he tells how he can take over the country and have followers rather than friends. The speech seems like it's taken from the Gyges' Ring section of Plato's Republic, which is much less about desperation than about opportunism. The speech doesn't really fit Geoffrey's character though, even if it is well-delivered by Price. The filmmakers quickly get back to the "innocent man" plot and bring things to a satisfactory conclusion.

This movie is much more upbeat, with a likable hero in an unlikely predicament. Price is as solid a voice actor as Rains and carries the film through some rough plot patches. The special effects are the equal of the first film.

Recommended--There's a little more thematic depth and personality to this movie, making it an interesting companion to the original.

The Invisible Woman (1940) directed by A. Edward Sullivan

The invisibility gag gets played for laughs in this feature. Professor Gibbs (John Barrymore) has developed a machine to make people invisible but needs a human test subject. He puts an ad in the paper; unfortunately his financial backer, Richard (John Howard), has lost too much money as a playboy and can't finance him anymore. Instead of offering $3000 in a newspaper ad, Gibbs offers the treatment for free. A lot of crackpots send joking replies (like "make my husband vanish, please!"). Kitty Carroll (Virginia Bruce) is a dress model who's harried by her boss and seriously wants to be invisible to give him what for. She replies as K. Carroll and the befuddled scientist assumes she's a man. When she shows up, he has to sort out a way to take away her visibility without seeing her "in the all together," as he puts it. The experiment is a success. Just as the professor calls Richard over to see, Kitty sneaks off to pester her boss. When she gets back, she discovers some mafia thugs ready to get the invisibility machine so their boss, who is stuck in Mexico, can sneak back into the country unseen. She foils their first plan but all the pieces are in place to have lots of comedic incidents.

Virginia Bruce is fun and adventurous, providing her character with a lot of charm. There's no angst or world-domination plans; the story is played for laughs and, of course, a romance develops between Kitty and Richard. The rest of the cast is good (Shemp Howard from The Three Stooges is one of the thugs!) but the script is very corny and occasionally too silly for its own good. The special effects are a bit sloppy at times and were a bit distracting. This movie watches like a B-movie sci-fi comedy.

Slightly recommended.

Invisible Agent (1942) directed by Edwin L. Marin

Frank Griffin (Jon Hall), grandson of the original Invisible Man, is recruited to infiltrate Nazi Germany and get valuable information back to the Allies. But not before Japanese and German agents (Peter Lorre and Sir Cedric Hardwicke) try to steal the invisibility serum from him. Frank agrees to go to Berlin. They fly him in, he takes the serum, and he parachutes into the outskirts of town. Evading the local Nazis is fairly easy. Frank meets up with his contact who sends him to Maria Sorenson (Ilona Massey) a fabulous blonde who happens to be the paramour of Hardwicke. Hardwicke's flunkie Heiser (J. Edward Bromberg) is trying to get both the girl and his boss's job. Frank breaks up Heiser's clumsy attempt at a romantic dinner with Maria. Maria and Frank work together to get the info he needs before escaping back to England.

The movie was made in the middle of World War II and it looks like second-rate propaganda to stir up anti-Axis sentiments. The Germans have properly despicable attitudes and are just as likely to turn on each other as to fight against Griffin. Any chance to make them look bad is taken, regardless of how much sense it does or does not make for the plot. They are depicted as buffoons and sadists, a sharp contrast to the heroic Frank. This film is one of those propaganda pieces that you'll agree with but also find tedious. The visual effects are not too convincing, plenty of wires are visible. 

Not recommended unless you are into propaganda films. Or want to be an Invisible Man completist. 

The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944) directed by Ford Beebe

Jon Hall is back, but as Robert Griffin--no relation to the other Griffins in the series. Robert sneaks back into England from South Africa. He was part of an expedition five years ago to a diamond mine. He lost his memory when he was hit on the head by a branch and did not recover his memory until two months before returning. He looks up his old partners, Irene and Jasper, who are now well-to-do aristocrats. Robert wants his share of the money but the couple claims they lost most of the money through bad investments. They offer half of what's left of their wealth. Robert wants more. Irene drugs Robert's whiskey and they try to get rid of him. Robert winds up at the home of Doctor Drury (John Carradine) who has been experimenting in, you guessed it, invisibility formulas. He's made his pets disappear but nothing larger than a dog. Robert is on the outs with the gentry and thus with the law, so he's willing to be the first human test. After he turns invisible, he leaves the doctor and goes for revenge against his old partners.

The premise starts off ambiguous. Robert is fairly unstable and broke out of a mental hospital in Africa, killing some people along the way, so he seems a bit unsympathetic. His partners are upright until they drug him and try to dump him literally on the side of the road. Robert then goes down the madman's path, losing some of the sympathy he gained when the partners turned on him. The movie winds up as a standard b-movie sci-fi thriller with not a lot new to offer.

Mildly recommended.

The Sequel Was Better? Frankenstein vs. The Bride of Frankenstein

The Sequel Was Better? is a series of reviews looking at famous movies with sequels that are considered, rightly or wrongly, to be better than the original movies. Typically, sequels are a step down in quality, acting, and/or production value. But not always. See more such reviews here.

Frankenstein (1931) directed by James Whale

A doctor obsessed with creating life seals himself away in an abandoned watch tower. He collects bodies from wherever he can. His name is Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive). He is son of Baron Frankenstein (Frederick Kerr) and fiance of Elizabeth (Mae Clarke). But the wedding is on hold while Doctor Frankenstein performs his experiments. Worried about him, his fiancee goes to the tower with a friend and the doctor's former university colleague, Doctor Waldman (Everett Sloan). They get their in time to witness Frankenstein bestowing life on the Monster (Boris Karloff). They leave a little disheartened but Waldman stays to help Frankenstein finish up and get back home. The two doctors have a hard time controlling the monster, mostly because their assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye) is constantly badgering the monster. The Baron comes to visit and by that point the monster has become uncontrollable and killed Fritz. The Baron, Waldman, and Elizabeth convince the overwrought Frankenstein to go home and recuperate. Waldman promises to kill the monster painlessly. At home, wedding plans resume. On the wedding day, Waldman still hasn't return--he's been killed by the monster too. The monster shows up and attacks Elizabeth, then flees. The townsfolk get the torches and pitchforks and head out to find the monster. He's eventually chased to an abandoned windmill which is burnt down with the monster inside. Young Frankenstein and Elizabeth are married, creating a happy ending for all but the monster.

The movie is a classic and has often been imitated. A lot of the settings and plot are familiar because other films have copied them. It looks cliched only because it was the source of all those cliches. Karloff's monster has become the definitive depiction despite many movie and television retellings trying out different makeup. The horror elements are less shocking but just because they have been imitated so many times. The big reveal of the monster (which is built up over ten minutes) is less effective a century later.

Which is not to say the makeup is bad. It looks very good even today. The whole look of the film also holds up. The sets are cavernous and often dwarf the characters. Yet the sets aren't empty.  The effects are practical and still look good. The camera work and visuals are very reminiscent of German expressionism as seen in Nosferatu or The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.

The acting is also impressive. Karloff gives a great silent performance as the monster. He has an innocence at the beginning that is slowly whittled away by the abuse heaped on him by Fritz and the others. Another iconic scene has the monster, after his escape from the tower, coming upon a small girl. The girl doesn't judge him for his looks or his inability to speak. She just wants a friend to play with. For a brief moment, the monster experiences human happiness. They toss flowers into the lake to make boats. When the monster runs out of flowers, he takes the next beautiful thing and tosses it into the water. He throws the girl in. She drowns and the monster flees in horror through the underbrush.

Clive's performance is good though overshadowed by Karloff. Frankenstein is not a one-dimensional mad doctor. He has blasphemous ambition (he wants to create life as God has done) but not a lot of foresight. The monster becomes less and less controllable and the doctor handles almost nothing well. No wonder he has a nervous breakdown. His sin comes back to haunt him. The doctor tries to do the right thing (destroy the monster) but his creation is more powerful than he is. Frankenstein barely survives to the end even though he's clearly more evil than the monster, who was goaded into mistrust and hostility. The doctor made many evil choices and repents the consequences more than the acts. In a less complicated story, he would have died too. He does earn some redemption but maybe not enough.

The movie is a classic for many good reasons. It's amazing how much story is packed into seventy-seven minutes. The visuals are impressive and the acting is good.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) directed by James Whale

In true cash-in fashion, the story starts with the monster, who was killed in the windmill fire, surviving the windmill fire. The basement was full of water, a detail not mentioned in the first film. Dr. Frankenstein and Elizabeth (now played by Valerie Hobson) aren't married yet--he's carried to town and nursed back to health by his loving fiancee.

Before he's fully recovered, his former mentor Doctor Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) visits and wants to collaborate with Frankenstein. Pretorius has done his own experiments with creating life, though he has been growing his creations rather than sewing dead body parts together. Frankenstein is conflicted to say the least--he does not want to go back to his experiments but is very intrigued by Pretorius's offer. He goes to Pretorius's lab to see his work. Pretorius has created many miniature people that the movie plays for comic effect. Pretorius wants to try out Frankenstein's methods and, more significantly, wants Frankenstein to fulfill his work. Frankenstein has made a man, now he needs to make a female of his new race.

Meanwhile, the monster has been terrorizing the countryside, though he does save a shepherdess from drowning (maybe making up for the little girl in the first movie?). He is captured, imprisoned, and escapes through brute force. Then, in a beautiful scene, he stumbles upon a blind hermit who befriends the monster. The hermit cares from him, teaching him to speak and about good things in life like food, drink, and smoking. A random stranger discovers the monster at the hermit's cabin and the monster has to fight and flee again. He goes to a graveyard and enters a mausoleum where he discovers Pretorius grave-robbing some parts for the female. Pretorius befriends the monster in a sinister way, using him to browbeat Frankenstein into building the female. The monster demands a mate and kidnaps Elizabeth, an extra bargaining chip for Pretorius.

The action moves back to the abandoned watchtower where the monster was created. They build and give life to a female (Elsa Lanchester) who is very twitchy. Much worse, she is horrified by the monster. The monster realizes he will be alone and goes to pull a level that blows up the laboratory. Frankenstein and Elizabeth flee before the monster throws the switch that kills him, the bride, and Pretorius.

This movie is also reckoned a classic. Much like Karloff's makeup, Elsa Lanchester's bride makeup and hair has become culturally iconic. The story is more whimsical and more philosophical. Pretorius's works are played for laughs and his wickedness is gleeful and sardonic. He clearly uses everyone else for his own ends. He's also more direct about Frankenstein's work. Where Frankenstein created life to see if he could and what it would be like to be God, he doesn't go the extra step of making a race of men until goaded into it by Pretorius. Frankenstein's god-like ambition is to create a race that serves his needs, so he is very close to Pretorius's exploitation of others. Frankenstein waffles a lot, though, making it possible for him to have redemption, unlike Pretorius.

The acting is very good here too. Lanchester's give a great performance, considering what little she had to do. She is constantly looking around, bird-like, and hisses and screams at the monster. She's innocent, terrified, and terrifying. Lanchester also plays author Mary Shelley in a prologue that sets up the themes of moral responsibility and the contrast of innocence and evil. Thesiger as Pretorius is delightfully wicked, like the Doctor in the old Lost in Space tv series, though Pretorius is much more malevolent.

The movie is not without flaws. Many bits of dialogue don't match up with the speaker's lips and clearly look and sound edited in after the fact. Una O'Connor plays the comic relief as a shrieking female servant of the Frankenstein household. Her performance is funny in parts but looks a bit dated and sexist eighty years later. They aren't big flaws, but they are there.

Both movies are classics, but is the second better than the first? Let's look at some points of comparison:

• SCRIPT--Both scripts are excellent, conveying the horror of the situation through well-drawn characters. Both movies start with prologues. The first has Everett Sloan (the actor portraying Doctor Waldman) stand in front of a theater curtain and warn the audience about the horrors to come--those terrors may be too much for the faint of heart. It's charming and a bit of whimsy. The second has Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley discussing the first part of the story and how it develops into the second. As I said above, it sets the tone for the movie by underlying certain themes. The expanded themes of innocence and guilt in the second raise that script to a higher level.
• ACTING--Boris Karloff became a star from this role, so much so that in the second movie he is billed only as "KARLOFF." The other actors do a great job. The contrast of the two mentors (the kind Waldman and the scheming Pretorius) makes a nice parallel in the two movies. The Pretorius roll is more flashy (the sort that would garner an Academy Award nomination nowadays) but both actors deliver fine performances. Lanchester gives an iconic performance  with almost no screen time, like Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love. Interestingly, Dwight Frye appears as the bodysnatching henchman in both movies. His character Fritz is killed in the first film but the actor comes back as a lackey for Pretorius! On the other hand, the comic relief Baron Frankenstein disappears in the second film to be replaced by Una O'Connor's comic relief performance, which is fine but has flaws as noted above.
• ADVANCES THE STORY/MYTHOLOGY--The second film deliberately advances the story, facing the consequences of Doctor Frankenstein's actions more directly. Pretorius's program is a logical extension of what happened in the first movie, though obviously it is a warped development from the disordered act of creating life from death. The monster as a character is also more developed. His tension between innocent and evil develops. He kills more people and he is treated terribly. At one point, he's tied to a log and held up in an unmistakably crucifixion-like image. The only religious character in the movie, the blind hermit, is clearly a man of compassion and caring. He prays with the monster and gives him a home and a life close to normal. The scene is an amazing endorsement of Christian charity. Too bad that was lost with someone else showing up! The monster is led down the path of evil by Pretorius, only to come to the realization that what's been done is too monstrous and must be destroyed. He has a very sympathetic ending. 
• VISUAL STYLE--James Whale, who directed both films, clearly was inspired by the horror classics of German expressionism and keeps an even tone between both films. The sets are huge and odd. The comic miniature people are clearly a visual effect that doesn't look so convincing by today's standards. Even so, the scene still looks good enough and is more focused on the comedy and story-telling rather than the wow-factor of the effect. The labs are much the same, with fantastical machinery dwarfing the human operators. The second film has a bigger variety of locations and shows them off well. Both films look great.

The second film is definitely a step forward in story-telling, character development, and visual breadth. Both are great, but Bride is more great. They make a fine double-bill for your Halloween watching pleasure. There's a DVD set with these and a bunch of other classic Universal Frankenstein movies...

Movie Review: Frankenstein (1931)

Frankenstein (1931) directed by James Whale

For the two-hundredth anniversary of the publishing of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, I've decided to rewatch the classic movie and give it a review!

Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) is obsessed with creating life through scientific means. Not just any life, either. He intends to create human life. He and his lackey Fritz (Dwight Frye, who made a delightful Renfield in Dracula) collect recently buried bodies and executed criminals to get the raw materials for a new human body. Fritz steals a brain from the university where Frankenstein used to study. Frankenstein's mentor, Doctor Waldman (Edward Van Sloan, who was Van Helsing in Dracula), still teaches there and is drawn in when Frankenstein's fiancee Elizabeth (Mae Clark) needs help. Henry has been avoiding the wedding until he can complete his experiments, which are clearly driving him past the point of sanity. They go to the isolated watch tower which is Henry's laboratory, where he does indeed endow a sewn-together body with life. Frankenstein clearly hasn't thought beyond that point as his creation suffers in isolation and torment (Fritz really doesn't like him and makes that obvious). The scientists debate about what to do with the creature. Dr. Frankenstein has a breakdown and is taken home, where he recovers and prepares for marriage. Waldman stays behind to take care of (i.e. kill painlessly) the monster. Frankenstein's monster breaks out and terrorizes the countryside before coming to the village and ruining Henry and Elizabeth's wedding day.

The movie was a smash hit and is rightly considered one of the great horror movies ever created. The cast give great performances, especially Clive as the obsessed scientist and Boris Karloff as the monster. Karloff's performance is especially effective since he portrays the innocence and minimal comprehension of a new-born person and the menace of a tortured soul who has known little other than inhuman treatment. His appearance is hideous but he reaches toward the light when he's finally taken out of shadows. He immediately embraces companionship with a young girl who doesn't freak out at his appearance and only wants someone to play with her. Their play ends tragically, and the monster knows something is wrong as he scrambles away through the underbrush. Karloff does a great job being at turns menacing and sympathetic.

James Whale's direction is close to perfect. Large and elaborate sets (the laboratory, Frankenstein's home, the town-wide celebration of the wedding, and even the opening cemetery scene) allow the camera to wander through, focusing on details and giving wider views. The action never gets lost and a lot of plot and theme is fit into seventy minutes of film time. The really horrific moments are ameliorated by comic relief in subsequent scenes. The science is a bit iffy but the movie is really about life and death, not about technical details. And it's about the horrifying consequences of trying to play God with human life.

Highly recommended.